The Courtship of Princess Leia Read-Through, Chapter Fifteen
Why read-through?
Chapter One
Chapter Fourteen
Chapters 1-9: Abridged
Sigh. I knew the whuffa-wrangling good times couldn't last. But I soldier on.
- Teneniel Djo has both her men tied up and marching home. She's decided that Isolder is handsome, but Luke is the real prize. A magic man - what a rare and valuable speciman!
- She thinks Artoo is harmless. We know, of course, that Artoo is the one behind the success of the galaxy's greatest heroes for the last forty years. Empires crumble before his agents. Underestimate him at your peril.
- The Nightsisters are gathering somewhere out there, so Luke suggests she free him so he can help fight if necessary. She thinks Luke isn't much of a warrior, which is probably fair considering how easily she sneaked up on him and clonked him over the head.
- Luke wants to know what she has planned for his future if he promises not to run away. She says she'll take him home, register him as her property, and keep him in her hut to sire her daughters. Which she thinks is a really good deal that he should jump at if he has any sense. Luke isn't so sure, since they're hardly even acquainted. Say, why wasn't this a factor back when you were giving Leia relationship advice? Where was the, "But Leia, you hardly know this prince - isn't marriage a little hasty?"
- Teneniel accuses him of thinking she's too ugly to marry, and asks if he'd rather be a sex slave to the Nightsisters. Because when you come from a society where you're the undisputably dominant gender and can kidnap or buy mates, you spend a lot of time thinking about whether your slaves think you're pretty. Uh-huh. Sure.
- Anyway, TD says she'll kill them all rather than let the Nightsisters get Luke, so Luke tries a bargain: let Isolder and Artoo go, and he'll stay. Ooh, and be her mate, she asks? Luke looks her up and down, obviously admiring her body, and says, "Perhaps." But it's not like he came here wife-shopping. WTF. I hope he's bluffing, because dude.
- At least he makes the point that he's not property, and the whole concept is squicky and wrong. It doesn't sink in yet, because TD's still thinking that she doesn't need Isolder as a breeder with Luke around and can sell him for a small fortune. Must be just like home for Isolder. Those evil, evil women with power.
- Luke's speech makes it rankle even more that no one was asking WTF was wrong with people for wanting to auction Leia off to the highest bidder earlier.
- Wolverton's already laying the ground for Teneniel/Isolder: Luke uses the Force to free himself, so it's obvious that she'll have trouble holding on to him. That leaves the pretty but useless one.
- Unless she goes for Artoo, who honestly is probably one of the best choices in this book.
- Luke and TD send Isolder and Artoo off to safety somewhere and head toward the Nightsisters. Because, uh... that makes it easier to sneak around them. Somehow. Just trust Dave on this.
- Luke is a super runner; he doesn't sweat and can carry on a conversation while racing along! He discovers that most witches sing their spells, but some have reached Year 6 at Hogwarts and can do basic ones wordlessly.
- Teneniel worries about Luke seeing her sweaty, dirty self and vows to change into clean clothes when they get home. Again, I don't think she'd react exactly like a twentieth-century American woman in this situation. Be embarrassed that a man is stronger, sure. Console herself that once he sees her in all her home base where she's a respected, good-looking young warrior he'll fall for her, sure. But get all a-flutter over him seeing her sweating, like ew, because she's being all strong and stuff? I don't buy it.
- They reach the Nightsisters. TD whips up a storm of dirt and leaves so they can sneak by. It doesn't work well enough, and the Nightsister Ocheron zaps Sith lightning into her breast. Because even powerful warrior women have to get girly injuries.
- Luke manfully slices Ocheron's head off with his lighsaber (releasing evil purple energy), cuts down four stormtroopers, and drags Teneniel to safety. She thinks she's dying and starts to cry. Silly Dathomir girls, thinking they're all powerful just because they can do spells and shoot people. A real outworlder man can take them any time.
- But never fear, Luke can save her by fondling her breast! Force-fully! Wolverton could have had her wounded in the shoulder or torso, but noooo, he just had to have that sexual healing. Luke's been a good boy; let's give him some boobies! That's what she said she wanted anyway, right?
- Teneniel coma-dreams about her mother's death years ago. She runs through the halls where witches laugh and eat and are happy, and no one notices poor little TD crying. When she wakes up, she touches her healed breast and thinks, Someday [...] someone will fill this emptiness inside me. *gags*
- And she had often dreamed that somewhere up there on another world were men like Luke. Like Luke how? Strong men who put her in her place as weaker and in need of a good healing grope?
- On the other hand, Teneniel looking to Luke as a mother-replacement opens the door for TD-Anakin comparisons. Which is not much of a consolation prize, but it's something. And it will give her and Isolder something in common, since she is somewhat like his mother...
- Luke comes in and strokes her cheek, and Teneniel laments that since he saved her life, she can't claim ownership of him anymore. Because that would totally ruin the balance of power, I guess.
- Explaining that the Nightsisters won't come to the cave hideout because it has ancestors' bones in it leads to a potted history of Dathomir, which is much more interesting than the rest of the chapter. Once upon a time, a bunch of guys built fighting machines shaped like people; this was illegal and so the men were banished to Dathomir to scrabble in the dirt and be eaten by rancors.
- We can infer that the prohibition against battle droids was lifted before the Trade Federation came along. Or that they got it lifted for some reason, possibly engineered by Palpatine...
- Life sucked on Dathomir until the rogue Jedi Allya got banished to Dathomir too. She tamed the rancors, figured out better food-gathering techniques, helped people found a new civilization, punished anyone who used the dark side, and was generally redeemed and non-dark - except for that tiny matter of enslaving men.
- Oddly, there's no indication why Allya thought men-as-slaves was such a great idea. Were they all still dangerous criminals who really couldn't be trusted to be free, and the practice of controlling them just stuck? Was the Jedi Council that banished Allya all-male, and she "naturally" decided to take her anger out on all men forever after? (Given the way women's motivations are presented in this story, that might be what Wolverton expects us to think. Those women, you know.) I can understand Teneniel not wondering about this, since it's all she's ever known, but you'd think Luke would ask.
- Anyway, a generation ago, the few outcast dark side witches gathered into the Nightsisters. Some of the good witches tried to use the dark side to fight them and became Nightsisters too. Teneniel asks if Luke has seen this happen elsewhere, and what causes it - is it a contagious magic illness, or bad spells, or what? He explains about good motives keeping you pretty and bad motives turning you ugly and evil, and says she already knows this in her heart.
- He also says Allya's daughters were too young when she died to have really learned much about the Force. Go on, rub in how amateurish the women are. Because all those male Jedi with better educations were so much better at resisting the dark side. And why not just assume that Allya taught her daughters some dark side stuff because, you know, she was a dark Jedi? I don't see how skill comes into it at all. It's really not whether anyone does or doesn't have degrees in Force-ology that's making the difference here. "Don't be nasty to people" is a pretty basic teaching, wouldn't you think?
- Luke lectures TD about how she's compassionate in some ways - eg, trying to avoid the Nightsisters and stormtroopers instead of planning to kill them from the get-go - and cruel in others - eg, TAKING SEX SLAVES. She protests that she wasn't trying to kill him when she threw those rocks, just incapacitate him - and anyway, she's planning to treat him really nicely! She wants to love him! It's the way we've always done things! Now, this actually sounds realistic to me. People can have what seem like the most unbelievable blind spots when they're raised to believe something is okay. Slaveowners throughout history have argued that it's okay when they're nice slaveowners.
- But TD fidgets uncomfortably, showing she knows Luke is right. How fortunate that a civilized man landed to chastise her about her wicked ways. It's not like she could learn this from those rare fighters for gender-equity in her planet's history (aren't there any? ...why not?), or figure it out for herself by watching how these star-people interact, or even talk to Leia about it. (Leia hasn't been such a great example so far in this book, though.) I don't think I've ever read a scene with a woman from one society explaining to a woman from another that actually, having an equal partnership is pretty cool. That would have been interesting and less overused.
- So Isolder, whom Luke must have brought back earlier, asks about the stormtroopers, and we get more history. Gethzerion (chief Nightsister) freaked them out so much that they do what she says. The other Imperials blew up their ships, stranding their men, rather than risk letting her loose on the galaxy.
- Gethzerion has about a hundred Nightsisters, and the Singing Mountain Clan only twenty-five or thirty witches. That's... actually much better odds than Luke and co. are used to fighting against.
You'll be back for Chapter 16
Chapter One
Chapter Fourteen
Chapters 1-9: Abridged
Sigh. I knew the whuffa-wrangling good times couldn't last. But I soldier on.
- Teneniel Djo has both her men tied up and marching home. She's decided that Isolder is handsome, but Luke is the real prize. A magic man - what a rare and valuable speciman!
- She thinks Artoo is harmless. We know, of course, that Artoo is the one behind the success of the galaxy's greatest heroes for the last forty years. Empires crumble before his agents. Underestimate him at your peril.
- The Nightsisters are gathering somewhere out there, so Luke suggests she free him so he can help fight if necessary. She thinks Luke isn't much of a warrior, which is probably fair considering how easily she sneaked up on him and clonked him over the head.
- Luke wants to know what she has planned for his future if he promises not to run away. She says she'll take him home, register him as her property, and keep him in her hut to sire her daughters. Which she thinks is a really good deal that he should jump at if he has any sense. Luke isn't so sure, since they're hardly even acquainted. Say, why wasn't this a factor back when you were giving Leia relationship advice? Where was the, "But Leia, you hardly know this prince - isn't marriage a little hasty?"
- Teneniel accuses him of thinking she's too ugly to marry, and asks if he'd rather be a sex slave to the Nightsisters. Because when you come from a society where you're the undisputably dominant gender and can kidnap or buy mates, you spend a lot of time thinking about whether your slaves think you're pretty. Uh-huh. Sure.
- Anyway, TD says she'll kill them all rather than let the Nightsisters get Luke, so Luke tries a bargain: let Isolder and Artoo go, and he'll stay. Ooh, and be her mate, she asks? Luke looks her up and down, obviously admiring her body, and says, "Perhaps." But it's not like he came here wife-shopping. WTF. I hope he's bluffing, because dude.
- At least he makes the point that he's not property, and the whole concept is squicky and wrong. It doesn't sink in yet, because TD's still thinking that she doesn't need Isolder as a breeder with Luke around and can sell him for a small fortune. Must be just like home for Isolder. Those evil, evil women with power.
- Luke's speech makes it rankle even more that no one was asking WTF was wrong with people for wanting to auction Leia off to the highest bidder earlier.
- Wolverton's already laying the ground for Teneniel/Isolder: Luke uses the Force to free himself, so it's obvious that she'll have trouble holding on to him. That leaves the pretty but useless one.
- Unless she goes for Artoo, who honestly is probably one of the best choices in this book.
- Luke and TD send Isolder and Artoo off to safety somewhere and head toward the Nightsisters. Because, uh... that makes it easier to sneak around them. Somehow. Just trust Dave on this.
- Luke is a super runner; he doesn't sweat and can carry on a conversation while racing along! He discovers that most witches sing their spells, but some have reached Year 6 at Hogwarts and can do basic ones wordlessly.
- Teneniel worries about Luke seeing her sweaty, dirty self and vows to change into clean clothes when they get home. Again, I don't think she'd react exactly like a twentieth-century American woman in this situation. Be embarrassed that a man is stronger, sure. Console herself that once he sees her in all her home base where she's a respected, good-looking young warrior he'll fall for her, sure. But get all a-flutter over him seeing her sweating, like ew, because she's being all strong and stuff? I don't buy it.
- They reach the Nightsisters. TD whips up a storm of dirt and leaves so they can sneak by. It doesn't work well enough, and the Nightsister Ocheron zaps Sith lightning into her breast. Because even powerful warrior women have to get girly injuries.
- Luke manfully slices Ocheron's head off with his lighsaber (releasing evil purple energy), cuts down four stormtroopers, and drags Teneniel to safety. She thinks she's dying and starts to cry. Silly Dathomir girls, thinking they're all powerful just because they can do spells and shoot people. A real outworlder man can take them any time.
- But never fear, Luke can save her by fondling her breast! Force-fully! Wolverton could have had her wounded in the shoulder or torso, but noooo, he just had to have that sexual healing. Luke's been a good boy; let's give him some boobies! That's what she said she wanted anyway, right?
- Teneniel coma-dreams about her mother's death years ago. She runs through the halls where witches laugh and eat and are happy, and no one notices poor little TD crying. When she wakes up, she touches her healed breast and thinks, Someday [...] someone will fill this emptiness inside me. *gags*
- And she had often dreamed that somewhere up there on another world were men like Luke. Like Luke how? Strong men who put her in her place as weaker and in need of a good healing grope?
- On the other hand, Teneniel looking to Luke as a mother-replacement opens the door for TD-Anakin comparisons. Which is not much of a consolation prize, but it's something. And it will give her and Isolder something in common, since she is somewhat like his mother...
- Luke comes in and strokes her cheek, and Teneniel laments that since he saved her life, she can't claim ownership of him anymore. Because that would totally ruin the balance of power, I guess.
- Explaining that the Nightsisters won't come to the cave hideout because it has ancestors' bones in it leads to a potted history of Dathomir, which is much more interesting than the rest of the chapter. Once upon a time, a bunch of guys built fighting machines shaped like people; this was illegal and so the men were banished to Dathomir to scrabble in the dirt and be eaten by rancors.
- We can infer that the prohibition against battle droids was lifted before the Trade Federation came along. Or that they got it lifted for some reason, possibly engineered by Palpatine...
- Life sucked on Dathomir until the rogue Jedi Allya got banished to Dathomir too. She tamed the rancors, figured out better food-gathering techniques, helped people found a new civilization, punished anyone who used the dark side, and was generally redeemed and non-dark - except for that tiny matter of enslaving men.
- Oddly, there's no indication why Allya thought men-as-slaves was such a great idea. Were they all still dangerous criminals who really couldn't be trusted to be free, and the practice of controlling them just stuck? Was the Jedi Council that banished Allya all-male, and she "naturally" decided to take her anger out on all men forever after? (Given the way women's motivations are presented in this story, that might be what Wolverton expects us to think. Those women, you know.) I can understand Teneniel not wondering about this, since it's all she's ever known, but you'd think Luke would ask.
- Anyway, a generation ago, the few outcast dark side witches gathered into the Nightsisters. Some of the good witches tried to use the dark side to fight them and became Nightsisters too. Teneniel asks if Luke has seen this happen elsewhere, and what causes it - is it a contagious magic illness, or bad spells, or what? He explains about good motives keeping you pretty and bad motives turning you ugly and evil, and says she already knows this in her heart.
- He also says Allya's daughters were too young when she died to have really learned much about the Force. Go on, rub in how amateurish the women are. Because all those male Jedi with better educations were so much better at resisting the dark side. And why not just assume that Allya taught her daughters some dark side stuff because, you know, she was a dark Jedi? I don't see how skill comes into it at all. It's really not whether anyone does or doesn't have degrees in Force-ology that's making the difference here. "Don't be nasty to people" is a pretty basic teaching, wouldn't you think?
- Luke lectures TD about how she's compassionate in some ways - eg, trying to avoid the Nightsisters and stormtroopers instead of planning to kill them from the get-go - and cruel in others - eg, TAKING SEX SLAVES. She protests that she wasn't trying to kill him when she threw those rocks, just incapacitate him - and anyway, she's planning to treat him really nicely! She wants to love him! It's the way we've always done things! Now, this actually sounds realistic to me. People can have what seem like the most unbelievable blind spots when they're raised to believe something is okay. Slaveowners throughout history have argued that it's okay when they're nice slaveowners.
- But TD fidgets uncomfortably, showing she knows Luke is right. How fortunate that a civilized man landed to chastise her about her wicked ways. It's not like she could learn this from those rare fighters for gender-equity in her planet's history (aren't there any? ...why not?), or figure it out for herself by watching how these star-people interact, or even talk to Leia about it. (Leia hasn't been such a great example so far in this book, though.) I don't think I've ever read a scene with a woman from one society explaining to a woman from another that actually, having an equal partnership is pretty cool. That would have been interesting and less overused.
- So Isolder, whom Luke must have brought back earlier, asks about the stormtroopers, and we get more history. Gethzerion (chief Nightsister) freaked them out so much that they do what she says. The other Imperials blew up their ships, stranding their men, rather than risk letting her loose on the galaxy.
- Gethzerion has about a hundred Nightsisters, and the Singing Mountain Clan only twenty-five or thirty witches. That's... actually much better odds than Luke and co. are used to fighting against.
You'll be back for Chapter 16